


The music box

by MidnightMare



Category: SHINee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-02-06 20:59:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12825975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MidnightMare/pseuds/MidnightMare
Summary: Lyrics at the beginning are from OrgelJust a little something that's been stuck in my head for a few years





	The music box

도망쳐 그만 내게서

두 다릴 굳혀버리고

몽롱해져 기억이 흐려져

Run from me

I stiffen my legs and

It gets foggy, the memories fade

-Jinki

 

이 세상엔 우리 둘 뿐이야  
오직 나를 위해 춤춰줘

There’s only us two in the world,  
dance just for me

-Taemin

 

너 항상 웃는 걸 보면 행복하지?

You’re happy since you’re always smiling?

-Jinki

 

날 위한 노래

This song for me

-Taemin

 

 

The music box was always open whenever Taemin passed this way, playing its simple song. It was beautiful—a squat honey-colored wooden box with small golden knobs for feet, the lid gently open and inlaid with a darker wood, covered with carvings of flower clusters—as the tune singing from within was beautiful. The box rested unassumingly on the far windowsill, near the desk in the corner with its register and notebooks, pens and shears and frayed ribbon scraps littering all the spaces in-between. The notes drifted up and down in a sober, yet soothing melody, and floated around the room, tinging words and carrying like a whisper on the wind through glass doors out into the street. Strung lights twinkled around the small garden beyond the front steps, tiny stars against the deep black of night, mirroring the real ones strewn far above across the sky, usually hardly seen through high city smog, some merely a memory of light traveled.

            This night, however, the stars above were clear, and Taemin felt both incredibly calm and cheerful, nearly skipping along the darkened sidewalk with a pronounced bounce to his step, yet feeling entirely at ease with the near-silence around this corner of the city at this time of night. The quiet was broken only by the tinkling song of the music box, as the darkness was ruined by the bright lighting within the shop as someone sat at the desk, pressing thumb to blade to silk and pulling harshly, the hiss of breaking threads following his movement.

            Though the music box was always open on his way home, and Taemin always let his eyelids dip and lungs fill happily at its song as he passed, he’d never paused before as he did so then. On that night, he leaned subtly against the white fence gleaming with garden lights, watching the man inside—only a few years older than himself, Taemin guessed—curl the long ends of a golden ribbon with a pair of purple scissors, and breathing in the delicate honeysuckle blossoms curling up over the posts. They smelled just as sweet as the song still playing, and Taemin’s mouth curled as he heard, just barely at this distance, the man humming along as he tied the golden curls around the clustered stems of a floral bouquet.

            Taemin was just backing away from the fence, his hands still lightly grasping the tops of the posts, the backs brushing pale flowers, when a figure just up ahead, moving briskly across the pavement, suddenly came into the light still glowing from within the shop and its garden, a glint of silver flashing where the person’s hand might be. Taemin’s heart all at once went cold, and he backed away, even as the man spoke, crowding him.

            “Yah,” he growled, gruff and low, the hand gripping a short knife extended towards Taemin’s torso. Quickly, Taemin ducked the man’s sluggish lunge and darted out of the corner he’d been backed into, stepping warily into the empty street, away from the man’s larger frame darkly silhouetted against the light of the flower shop. Apparently desperate, the man raised his knife arm again, spitting with anger—“Yah, brat! Just give me your wallet, now, and I won’t throw this.”

            Taemin paused for only a second, but that was enough to anger the man further. He growled again (Taemin thought for half a moment that it must be a terrible habit) and started towards him, but only got about two steps before a large object rose above him from behind and smashed loudly into his head. The man dropped unceremoniously with a thud onto the pavement (Taemin winced at the thought of the knife still in his hand and hoped he hadn’t stuck himself on the way down, even as his chest still seared in panic), the smashed remains of a painted clay pot littering the ground around him. The music box was almost to the end of its song, and the notes spread, the melody drifting to a close over several long seconds.

            “Well,” said a new voice, breaking the new silence, and Taemin let out a big breath and looked up from his now-motionless attacker to the man who’d smashed a pot for him. Stepping back onto the sidewalk along the garden and turning to face him, Taemin could now see for certain that it was the man from inside the shop, the florist who’d just finished his bouquet.

            “That was exciting,” he continued, sounding a little breathless and flashing a sort of helpless grin. “I’m not sure what to do now, though.”

            “Call 119?” Taemin suggested with a shrug. “I think you knocked him out. And he did attack me, so, 112, too.…” They both looked back down at the man, and the florist nodded contemplatively.

            “I suppose that’d be logical,” he said, and pulled out his phone to dial it.

            A few minutes later, sirens could be heard wailing through the city streets, and the florist was holding open the small gate that surrounded his garden outside his shop and inviting Taemin inside, out of the dark and the noise. Taemin followed him compliantly, latching the gate shut behind himself and breathing in honeysuckle as the music box was started once more.

           

Taemin learned that his name—the florist’s name, not the mugger’s—was Lee Jinki, and that he worked at this little flower shop on the outskirts of Seoul, owned by his grandfather. Taemin learned that Jinki wore contacts, because one had gotten stuck by the excessive blinking he’d been doing as he watched the mugger approach Taemin, because he’d never thought in his wildest dreams (not that he ever remembered any of his dreams) that anything like that would happen right outside his shop, and he had to go take them out and put his glasses on instead because he didn’t like wearing them this late anyway. Taemin learned that the first thing Jinki felt like doing after a crisis—and switching to his glasses, which were thin black frames around rather large, circular lenses that really did suit his dark eyes and dark hair—was brew a mug of tea, and offer one to Taemin, too. Taemin accepted it quietly, breathing in lemon and bright rosehip steam. Taemin also learned—all of this within the space of five minutes—that Jinki had a really fantastic smile, especially when he was grinning cheerfully behind the rim of a steaming mug and leaning against the desk, insisting that Taemin take the only chair in the place because he’d “suffered a traumatic experience.”

            “It wasn’t really traumatic,” Taemin protested lightly, setting his mug down on the desk—his lips burned, the tea still too hot to drink—after glancing around hopelessly for some kind of coaster, instead using a closed notebook and hoping Jinki didn’t care. Jinki waved it off and took another large gulp of tea, his unusually pointy Adam’s apple bobbing beneath his skin. Taemin had a sudden urge to giggle, but restrained himself. “He didn’t land a scratch on me, not even a bruise, so I hardly suffered. Even if he had thrown the knife, he probably would have missed. He didn’t seem very skilled.”

            Jinki laughed aloud. “You’re probably right, Taemin,” he agreed, still chuckling (Taemin had, of course, offered his name in return for Jinki’s, and something had bloomed warmly in his chest and curled his lips into a smile when Jinki’s grin had stretched just a little wider at their shared family name). “If a person’s going to be a mugger, they should train up better for it.”

            “They might as well. It’s not like it’d be easy to get a real job with something like that on record.” Taemin’s gaze was lowered with speech, but when he fell silent again, it wandered curiously around the shop, the edge of the desk pressing into his wrist as his fingers trailed over his mug’s warm handle. His eyes flicked over the flowers on display all along the walls. Nearly every flower imaginable was displayed, most of which Taemin couldn’t name if he tried (except for the roses, but those were so generic, he didn’t think it wasn’t anything special to recognize them). The music box was on its perhaps third or fourth round since he’d been almost-mugged, as Jinki continually restarted it whenever it finished, and he hummed along a little as his eyes fell onto the bouquet he’d seen Jinki working on through the window. “What’re those?”

            “Hmm?” Jinki had been draining the last trickles of tea from the bottom of his mug, and brought his chin down as he wiped his lips with his thumb. “Oh, those’re orchids and lilies. I like them.” He edged a bit more onto the top of the desk, one thigh higher than the other, so he could better face Taemin, who sat behind it.

            “They’re pretty,” Taemin said sincerely, reaching out a light hand to graze the petals. “I saw you curling the ribbon outside—it’s pretty, too. How’d you get them so perfect?”

            Jinki shrugged modestly as the music box song came to a close. He stood up and restarted it before he answered, the tranquil tune trickling throughout the main shop room as he returned to his half-sit on the desk. “Lots and lots of practice. Grandpa likes caring for the flowers, but isn’t much for the presentation part. So I’m pretty much just here to sell them.” He grinned.

            He does that a lot, Taemin thought to himself, thinking of both his near-constant smile and the replaying of the music box…not that either were at all unwelcome. For some reason, Jinki’s smiles had him starting to feel as he had before, on the dark road outside, a strange simultaneous sense of peace and giddiness entwined, and the music was starting to feel like a patched fog over his mind, veiling any stress he’d had recently and letting him see straight through to the best parts in life.

            Sitting back and taking up his mug again, comforting steam rushing warmly over his face, he caught a glimpse inside the large drawer on the lowest portion of the desk’s body, slightly ajar and revealing a short stack of books tucked inside. The topmost had a very familiar cover. He moved the blue rim against his lips, hiding a small grin, and he drank hot dark tea cautiously, before lowering his mug and asking, “So, what else do you like, Jinki-ssi?” If that was Jinki’s book, and he was any bit of the fan Taemin was, he expected it to be the first thing out of his full mouth. He wasn’t disappointed.

            Jinki ducked his head bashfully. A huge smile stretched unbidden across his face, his front teeth cheerfully large as his eyes all but disappeared, his shaggy bangs falling forward with his movement. Taemin nearly laughed out loud at Jinki’s awkward stance, palms placed on his thighs as he straightened and chuckled nervously and said, “I like Harry Potter….”

            “Good,” Taemin said with his own big smile, dark eyes turning up in crescent moons. “That means we can be friends. Which is a good thing, ‘cause you’re cute.”

             Jinki choked on his fresh cup of tea and blushed as his glasses slipped down his nose.

            The music box was still playing an hour later when Taemin stepped back out into the road, the night deepened to blue-black, insisting that he absolutely did not need Jinki to walk him back towards his dormitory on campus several blocks away, even though his chest felt full when Jinki did anyway, and Taemin could imagine his smile in the dark when he heard it in his voice as they walked side by side on the sidewalk, a streetlamp some ways in the distance casting a dim glow over the entrance to his building. Jinki waved a dorky goodnight to Taemin as he walked up to the door, and the music box’s song and the florist’s sweet smile swirled ‘round Taemin’s mind right into deep sleep, limbs curled like golden ribbons underneath blankets and the scent of honeysuckle and lemon lingering in his nose pressed into the pillow.

*

“No, no, no,” Taemin said, shaking his head emphatically. “Ron and Hermione are clearly meant to be together, okay, that’s just—” he breathed from his mouth, practically fuming, lower lip jutting forward “—just not something that should even be messed with.” He dropped his wet brush into a shallow paint-splotched tin pan and rolled back to sit on his bum, relieving numb legs, and started scrubbing furiously at a splash of dark blue paint that had dried crustily on the back of his hand. “I mean, from the very beginning they were all awkwardly attracted to each other, you could just tell. And by fourth year? I mean, Krum asking her to the ball was definitely the wake-up call for Ron, but he really should’ve known all along.”

            Jinki shrugged, adding broad strokes of peach pink to highlight the already-dried petals of summer-white painted on his pot, sitting criss-cross-applesauce a few feet from where Taemin now leaned against the front steps of the flower shop. “Yeah, I get all that, but, still, spending so much time with him, all the time, it’d be almost sweeter if—”

            It was midday on the Sunday following Taemin’s Friday-night almost-mugging. Taemin and Jinki were sitting outside in under a warm sun, surrounded by dozens of little bottles of acrylic paint and brushes of all shapes and sizes, all for two large ruddy clay flower pots. The music box on the sill was open, and its sweet tune drifted through the wide window, spreading throughout the garden. Jinki had texted Taemin several hours before, asking him if he’d like to come over and paint some pots he’d bought his grandpa to replace the smashed one he’d knocked the mugger out with. Apparently Jinki’s grandpa had gotten quite a kick out of the story, ambling in Saturday morning to a sheepish Jinki disposing of the broken clay pieces freshly swept into the dustpan, laughing heartily before ordering Jinki to make up for it.

            As they painted, the subject of Harry Potter had come up again, and they’d already gone over all the usual necessary discussions every Potterhead friendship has to get through, and, finding they mostly agreed on every point, had thus moved on to ships.

            “Okay, it might be kinda cute,” Taemin interrupted, conceding that point, “but sweeter? They would just drive each other crazy.” The blue wasn’t coming off, and he scowled at it.

            “But there it is!” Jinki exclaimed excitedly, setting his pot and brush down and gently taking Taemin’s hand, dipping his fingers into one of the clean glasses of water they’d set out to wash the brushes later and rubbing the paint carefully from his skin. Taemin leaned forward, chest between his knees, watching the runny blue trickle down the swell of his hand, below his thumb, Jinki’s fingerpads following. “Fred would prank Hermione, she would get crabby and he’d hug her to apologize; he would take her flying, she would get all scared and hold on to him; he would blow off studying, she would make a schedule for him to follow and get all worried about his grades and wonder how he did well regardless of skipping class every other day, but it’d of course be because he wanted to impress her—it’d be really cute, okay.”

            Jinki had, over the course of the morning, realized that Taemin was a hardcore Hermione Granger/Emma Watson fan—which was awesome, because she was awesome—but that he didn’t care for any deviation in where her heart laid in the original series. Which, to Jinki, was slightly saddening, because he adored Hermione, but he also thought the twins were marvelous. Taemin, in turn, had learned that Jinki loved nearly everyone in his own happy way, and looked for heavy sparkage between any even slightly well-suited characters, which, to someone quite happy with the couples turned out, was maddening.

             Sudden footsteps sounded along the sidewalk several meters away, beyond the fence, and Jinki flushed pink all at once and licked his lips as he bowed his head, still holding Taemin’s hand with both of his, his thumb wet with watery paint as it stilled in the middle of a smear across Taemin’s skin. He’d rather do anything than be caught dead in public—by a potential customer, no less—gushing about fandom couples.

             Taemin smirked at his new friend’s bashfulness. Thankfully, the person didn’t turn towards the shop—they weren’t open on Sundays, anyway—and great embarrassment was avoided. Jinki breathed a sigh of relief, and glanced up to see whether Taemin had noticed. Taemin was looking determinedly at his hand, but the hint of a smile tugged at the corners of his pale pink lips, and Jinki blushed even redder. He couldn’t help it. His blood was out of his control.

            “Hmm,” Taemin grunted as he took his hand back and rubbed at it, squinting in the sunlight—unnecessarily, as Jinki had quite finished getting all the paint off. “Maybe I could see it. Maybe.” No, not really, but Jinki’s expression was too hopeful to shoot down.

            Jinki grinned victoriously, cheeks still slightly pink, but there was something else in his eyes that Taemin barely caught and couldn’t define before he went back to painting his flower pot. Jinki was putting great detail into the depths of each blossom he sketched and filled in, creating beautiful little buds on long stems and wide, blooming petals above an abundance of leaves, on a pale blue and green and yellow background. Taemin’s pot was simpler, and after he set it drying in the sun, week-old newspaper layering the grass and absorbing deep blue drips, the simple swirled black borders along the rims left dark circles on the paper hours later when they lifted it up. The green grass beneath Taemin was still damp with dawn-dew. The sun was drifting higher in the sky as the day drew on slowly, and it shone down warmly on his outstretched arms, propped on his knees, as he leaned his shoulders and upper back against the side of the steps again.

            Jinki swept his brush along the bottom edge of his pot in a dramatic, curling green stem, and dropped it into a fresh glass of water. He studied the pot, face pensive, before breaking out into a grin and gesturing at it to Taemin. “What d’you think?” he asked, arching his back and stretching his arms high above his head as he twisted, cracking his joints.

            Taemin hummed, taking the question seriously. “It’s much nicer than the one you smashed. Though,” he said dryly, “I suppose that’s not much of an answer, seeing as I could hardly see that one in the dark.” A half-smile quirked his lips.

            “I’m taking that as a strong approval, then?” Jinki leaned forward eagerly, hands dropped back down to the earth and twining with strands of grass. The lawn needed a mowing.

            “You could,” Taemin said honestly. He liked the way Jinki blushed and his eyes squinted in the sun. He wasn’t wearing his glasses, though Taemin wished he was.

            Jinki nodded to himself, gaze fixed on the pot, satisfied. He carefully situated it on a pile of newspaper, and gathered up the used brushes and dropped them all in glasses to soak. “It’s getting late; you want some food?”

            As soon as he stood, he reached through the open window to the left of the steps, over Taemin’s outstretched legs, and reset the dwindling music box for the dozenth time since they’d sprawled out with art supplies. Taemin scrambled up just as the steady beginning notes of the song drifted through the window—curving up and down, rolling like cold waves on a wide, wet beach, darkened by the sea and heavy with the salt in the air, yet light, gusting like a brief grey wind over the tops of small white crests—popping up alongside Jinki, their shoulders brushing. Despite the many times he’d listened to the song, whenever he was near the flower shop, Taemin wasn’t tired of it, and his smile was bright, though curious as Jinki gently brushed the gaping lid of the box, sweet as a caress, and met Taemin’s eyes, his own lined with moisture, from the sun glaring beyond Taemin’s fluffy head.

*

Taemin passed by the flower shop on his way to the dance studio some blocks away, in one of the busier districts of the city. He had his eyes fixed on his feet, awareness lulled by the rhythmic motion of his sneakers against the pockmarked pavement—scuff tap, scuff tap, scuff tap—only vaguely thinking that the heels of his rubber soles were probably being worn down bit by bit, as he shivered and tucked his hands into his sweatshirt pockets; it was a longer, rather boring walk he took several times a week.

            Head ducked, and zoned out as he was, Taemin didn’t notice as he came onto the length of street where he’d been nearly mugged, not even when Jinki came rushing out the light yellow front door of the shop, calling “I’ve got it, give me an hour or so” as he stumbled haphazardly down the front steps. It was only when Jinki was unlatching the white gate and saying his name with surprised delight did Taemin glance up, startled, and notice the song of the music box floating unassumingly through the air, stemming from the cracked window.

            “Oh,” Taemin said, blinking. “Hi, Jinki.” He managed a weary smile and half-raised an arm, palm open in a lazy wave, a small breeze twirling around his fingers.

            Jinki frowned, his eyebrows puckering above his nose and pursed lips. “You all right?” He began to walk alongside Taemin, urging his slow pace.

            “Yeah,” Taemin said through a yawn. “Just tired. Stayed up all night, and this walk takes forever.” He slung his backpack down alongside his torso, still walking, and rummaged around inside through the half-opened zipper, pulling out a bun in a Ziploc. Jinki glanced over at him curiously every few steps as Taemin ripped giant shreds of bread with his teeth, cheeks puffed as he chewed. Jinki’s hands were shoved deeply into his sweatshirt pocket, his left curled around a crumpled list jotted in hasty blue ink.

            “Where are you headed?” Jinki finally asked, once Taemin had swallowed the last of the bun. When he looked up, his eyes were brighter, and Jinki grinned. It was nearing dusk, the last vestiges of a crowning golden sun peeping between tall buildings before them, glaring across the square as they passed through it, twinkling through the fountain like it was spilling so many shimmering crystals onto the stones below. The wind was colder than it was minutes before, and Taemin gripped his backpack straps tighter around his shoulders as he said, “Dance practice—” he was cut off by his own yawn “—that I spent all night preparing for. I have to teach a routine this week and it still needs work.” His feet strayed slightly closer to Jinki’s as he turned to him, and he didn’t bother stepping away again when his walk straightened. “You?”

            “We need new ribbons for the shop. And stamps. Grandpa wanted me to pick up more stamps.”

            Taemin hummed, and silence fell over them as they continued walking through the square and onto one of the larger streets beyond it. There were fewer people than usual out that evening, but still enough bustling to force Taemin and Jinki closer together as they shuffled through small crowds. The wind was picking up, and the sun was nearly out of sight entirely, only a sheen of gold thrown lightly over dark blue above left, and Taemin thought about the music box. This was the first time he’d been with Jinki without hearing it, over and over, and over again, the unceasing song winding about their forms and brushing their eyes and lips as they talked, or didn’t.

            It was still a ways before Taemin reached the studio, but his walk slowed, and Jinki still hadn’t turned into a crafts shop for shining ribbons as they moved further through town. Taemin thought about pressing his phone bright, Jinki twirled a loose watch about his wrist, but neither checked the time.

            It was Jinki who interrupted the serene silence, head thrown back, gazing up above buildings, his full lips pursed as he said, “It’s getting darker earlier.” His sneakers scuffed against the pavement more the longer he looked skyward, gravitating to solid ground as his mouth hung open, eyes stretching to the stars as his Adam’s apple bobbed.

            For the first time that night, Taemin’s lips cracked into a teeth-showing smile, a bit of a chuckle resounding low in his throat, eyes brightened just enough to hint at amusement as he glanced towards Jinki with a small shake to his fringe, curving black over his brows. “It does that.”

            Jinki frowned, coming back down to earth. “What’s funny?”

            “You!” Taemin said, smiling full-out now, his thick lips curved like a pair of crescent moons, pale in the shadows, and tapping Jinki’s side playfully. “Of course it’s getting dark earlier. It’s one of the most normal things about fall. But you make everything sound so awe-inspiring.”

             Jinki, who’d jumped away from Taemin’s hands, shrugged as he stepped close again, knocking their shoulders together gently. “Sometimes it’s nice finding a little bit of awe in everyday things.”

            “Hmm,” Taemin murmured, throwing his own head back as his steps meandered, growing slower and meaningless. His shoulder stayed near Jinki’s, and the darkness now took up most of the sky, leaving everything in shades of coal and ash. Jinki’s breath glimmered in the cool grey air, like it did the night they’d met, a few weeks ago. “It sounds like hard work—thinking of something awe-inspiring, every day.” He remembered the music box and its melody, and thought he could almost hear it here in the darkness with Jinki, footsteps slowed to a stop as he continued to look up, though he felt Jinki’s eyes fixed on his face, if he tried.

            Jinki didn’t respond right away. The silence lingered between them—on this street, out of the way, a shortcut Taemin had taken without minding where his feet led him, and Jinki following, as he might’ve, without noticing anything but Taemin’s red and black sneakers.

            “But, you do that anyway, don’t you?” Taemin glanced over to see Jinki’s brow furrowed, perplexed. Without offering anything, Taemin continued to stare at Jinki, eyebrows twitched upwards to urge elaboration.

            “You dance.” Jinki said it as simply as if it were the most obvious fact in the world, gesturing to Taemin’s feet. “You dance, and it makes you happy, right? That’s awe-inspiring. I don’t think I could ever dance like that, with a real purpose.”

             They’d stopped walking entirely by now, Jinki’s shoes angled towards Taemin and the street off the edge of a cracked concrete curb, his head turned towards him. Taemin looked him in the eye, refusing to get embarrassed, though he blushed. The sky was black now, the streets lit up dimly with the warm glow of lamps filtered through the silhouettes of the slender boughs and flimsy leaves of trees growing along the walk. Jinki’s lips looked fuller as Taemin took a sure step forward, shadows lingering along his cupid’s bow, and Jinki just had a second to widen his eyes fully round before Taemin had leaned in completely, grasping Jinki’s upper arms and colliding their mouths together. Taemin laughed between their lips, his pink mouth brushing Jinki’s, melding them together in a sealed kiss.

             It took a second for Jinki’s mind to catch up, but then he’d slipped his hands to Taemin’s waist, stepping closer and moving his jaw in tandem, little thrills shooting up in spirals all throughout his stomach and spine, and there was buzzing between his ears. Taemin’s lips were warm, and moist and sweet, sticky, sugar-lined by the bun he’d eaten before, and they reminded Jinki of snow.

            “See?” Taemin said, huffing a bit, as he stepped away after a moment longer. “You can dance, even if it’s not with your feet.” He licked his lips, squinting thoughtfully. “You could invest in some balm, though—chapstick, even—if you want that to be a bit more awe-inspiring next time.”

            Jinki blushed to the roots of his tangled hair, bringing several fingers up to his lips and rubbing at their dryness self-consciously while Taemin laughed and set to walking once more.

*

“I’m still not sure how I feel about this,” Jinki said quietly, honestly, against Taemin’s plush mouth. Taemin blinked to find Jinki’s lids still lowered, lashes fluttering against his own cheekbones, and took a half-step back, letting a small hand fall down Jinki’s pale arm, brushing from his t-shirt to skin to his warm palm. “It’s not scary,” he whispered.

            Jinki opened his eyes and started chewing on the inside of his lip, rumpling his mouth. “It’s like kissing,” he said then. Taemin’s black brows quirked. “It’s comfortable,” he continued, and paused. “But only when no one can see us. It’s not something I want to be a performance.”

            Taemin chuckled, flicking his long black bangs out of his eyes. He needed a trim. “Well, you don’t have to do it with me.”

            “But I want to!”

            “Then?”

            Jinki sighed, and tugged Taemin along the walk. It was early evening, as it often was when they found time to be together, Taemin passing by the flower shop on his way from classes, or on the way to dance. Jinki kept walking when they approached the dance studio Taemin used, though. “Wait, so you don’t want to?” Taemin asked, confused as they passed the entrance. “I do, just not there, I don’t think.” He glanced over, dark eyes determined. “Is that okay?”

            Taemin shrugged, then shivered, the light wind sneaking inside his open coat. He adjusted their clasped hands and rummaged around in his pocket to bring out a bun. “Do you want some?”

            They ate the bun together, Jinki tearing bits from his hand or from between his lips, until Jinki spotted a glass-covered tube entrance on the other side of the street. “Come on!” The sky was a flat grey, clouds pressed together in a silvery haze that blocked out the sun entirely, criss-crossed into metal geometrics as they passed under the dome of the tube, taking the escalator downstairs. Jinki added more money to his card and pulled them through to a train, and then they were speeding away in the darkness.

 

“You want to dance? Here?”

            Jinki walked out onto the white sand, going all the way to the sodden rim of salt tide, bouncing on his toes, watching them press into the sand pulled away by the water. He breathed in and turned to Taemin, who was sitting on a rock and pulling his sneakers and socks off, the lightwashed blue hems of his skinny jeans dipping into a hill of scratchy white sand. It was still early enough to be light, the sky still greyed over with warm clouds and reflected silvery in the water. “Why not?”

            Taemin laughed and shook his head, but didn’t say anything, walking to Jinki and taking his hand. “I’m surprised you like the sea,” he said.

            “Why?”

            “Well,” Taemin said hesitantly. “It’s sort of…kind of…dead? Compared to your flower garden.” Jinki hummed and started walking along the tideline, his grin splitting out whenever cold water rushed their ankles, little half grimaces at stepped-on stones. Taemin was reminded of the music box, its absence, the quiet melody of it still stuck in his head after several months of visiting Jinki’s flower shop, always playing in the background on the sill, again and again and again. Taemin had never gotten around to asking Jinki about it, and he was almost wary to. It felt almost ritualistic, how Jinki always restarted it automatically, or habitual. A habit too hard to break.

            “Can you show me how to dance, here?” Jinki said a few minutes later. Taemin quirked his brow and released Jinki’s hand, twirling barefoot in the water, splashing Jinki’s jeans up to the thighs. Then he started to dance, a little wobbly at first, but gaining balance and strength in sodden but graceful movements that flicked water everywhere. Jinki sat down on the sand and just watched, the smile never leaving his face, saltwater swimming in his head, the heels of his hands pressed against rubbery purple seaweed, fingertips digging between stones into sand that caught between nails and skin. There was no music but for the breath rhythmically released from Taemin’s slight but strong chest and the water swirling around his feet. A train rumbled by on the rail not far from the shore, and the clouds bulged with threatened rain. The sea lurched in the wake of a boat passing behind Taemin, who held still in end, and then reached a hand out to Jinki.

            Taemin taught Jinki how to dance in the shallows, giggling and smacking stray limbs and trying to get Jinki to understand that this is not at all how this would work on waxed wood floors with bright overhead lights and a wall-length mirror to watch one’s own movements. But Jinki couldn’t hear the music box, and somehow that was all just fine, far away from the bustle of citystreets.

            “It’s not dead at all, you know,” Jinki murmured as they rested side by side on the sandbank, wrapped tightly in their jackets and waiting for their feet to dry. It was late evening by now, and they were still able to see but intended to head back soon, to the flower shop, or Taemin’s dorm. Taemin rustled as he moved his head to prop it up on his hand, elbow firmly planted in sand. “How so?”

            “Well, there’s the seaweed. That’s like plants. And there are all the little stones, bright as flowers. And the sand itself that’s always changing, and the tide that never stops. And there are the angels, too.”

            “Angels?” Taemin’s nose scrunched cutely. “Where?”

            Jinki sighed, not in burden but for breath, and hoisted himself up. A short distance away he picked something up, lingering between the high bank and the rising tide. “Here,” he said, sitting back down to face Taemin. He held a hard round disc between fingers and thumb. “Sand dollars hold angels. Not that you’re not one here on your own,” he added, grinning at Taemin.

            “Yah, stop it.” Taemin blushed though, anyway, his eyes bright looking up at Jinki, who brought the dollar between his hands and snapped it in half. Taemin’s eyes widened. “Why did you do that?”

            “I guess…,” Jinki paused. “I’m trying to tell you something, but I’ve never been very good at coming out with it. I think…that you might be quiet but you know how to talk. I can talk, but usually it’s about nothing.” He held one broken half in each hand. A wind blew over the long grass behind the sand bank, a quiet rustling. Taemin shifted up to watch as Jinki gently set one half down between them and gently prodded the middle of the other, finger dipping between the two whitened sheets of bone. “Here.” He pulled Taemin’s hand open and tipped it over. Small bits fell onto Taemin’s cool palm, fingers pressed tightly together to cup them from falling. Jinki picked one up and held it eye-level between them. “It’s an angel.”

*

Taemin was skipping on his way to dance practice a few weeks later, a smile completely overtaking his face, disappearing his eyes to tiny folded crescents and stretching his wide pink lips over his white teeth. He felt completely calm. Classes this quarter were fun enough to make up for the fact that it was still school, and his own newly-begun class of a dozen young dancers was going very well. They seemed to look up to him, young as he was himself.

            He rounded the corner and made his way down the long, empty street Jinki’s flower shop rested along, hoping to catch a glimpse of him before practice started. Jinki was setting out a vibrant orange pumpkin near the white fence surrounding the yard of the shop, a floral shape carved out of its side and a lit tealight set inside to flicker through along the sidewalk. He stood and, seeing Taemin, smiled brightly himself, jogging a few steps to meet Taemin with a quick hug, and a peck. “Heading to practice?”

            “Yup.” Taemin glanced at the pumpkin. “I didn’t know you were festive for random holidays like that.”

            Jinki shrugged. “I like how they look. And it’s not really spooky.”

            “Ah, no, you misunderstand how terrifying daisy cut-outs can be.”

            Jinki grinned and shook his head in mock sorrow. “There goes my business for the month.”

            Taemin checked his watch. “I can’t be late, but will you come over later?”

            Jinki agreed easily, as he always did, and Taemin kissed him goodbye, grasping Jinki’s jaw sweetly and tapping his sneaker toe against Jinki’s before running off. Jinki tasted like lemon and bright rosehip and a wavery tinge of something else, and as he was walking into practice and letting go of his bag, seeing himself flushed with that odd sort of lingering happiness he’d felt since the summer in the all-encompassing mirror, he realized that the music box melody hadn’t been drifting from the open windowsill and filling the dim air between them.


End file.
